How to Learn Without Memorizing
Photo by Edwin Stemp Rote memorization is an inefficient way to learn. Just retaining a single formula can mean pounding the same information into your skull dozens of times. If your computer hard drive had this accuracy, you’d probably throw it out. Unfortunately, you’re stuck with your brain. The good news is that you don’t need to learn by memorization.
Using Pattern Recognition to Enhance Memory and Creativity - Maria Popova
"If seven friends in turn rapidly told him their phone numbers, he could calmly wait until the last digit was spoken and then, from memory, key all seven friends' numbers into his phone's contact list without error." It seems to be the season for fascinating meditations on consciousness, exploring such questions as what happens while we sleep, how complex cognition evolved, and why the world exists. Joining them and prior explorations of what it means to be human is The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning (public library) by Cambridge neuroscientist Daniel Bor in which, among other things, he sheds light on how our species' penchant for pattern-recognition is essential to consciousness and our entire experience of life. To illustrate the power of chunking, Bor gives an astounding example of how one man was able to use this mental mechanism in greatly expanding the capacity of his working memory.
Pi Memorisation
This section will help you memorize Pi. Pi is defined, in Euclidean geometry, as a constant which is the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. Why Pi? Pi is a challenge to memorize because the number of digits in it are infinite, and there's no discernable pattern anywhere to the order of the digits. There are many other constants with these qualities (most notably e, the base of natural logarithms, and the square root of 2), but since Pi is usually introduced in geometry before other similar numbers, Pi is the most recognizable of these numbers. Together, all these qualities help make Pi a classic challenge, and allow you to determine to what degree you wish to meet the challenge.
Boost Your Brain Power: 7 Tips for Improving Your Memory
Surely, constantly forgetting what you were doing in the middle of doing something and constantly looking for your misplaced house keys is not the ideal way to spend your golden years. Don't wait until it is too late to start thinking about improving your memory. If you are bad at remembering simple to-do tasks, other people's names, your girlfriend's birthday, and other relevant pieces of information, use some of the most useful mnemonic devices illustrated below to help you retain things more permanently in your brain space.
Enhancing learning using sensory specific words
Everyone uses their senses to learn. Most people have an unconscious successful strategy for learning that is triggered when the information is presented in a preferred way. Teachers normally cover the different learning styles by telling, showing and then getting a pupil to experience what they need to learn. This can work while the student can experience what they need to learn.
You can increase your intelligence: 5 ways to maximize your cognitive potential
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of Scientific American. "One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one’s greatest efforts." —Albert Einstein
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This wiki is a collaborative environment for exploring ways to become a better thinker. Topics that can be explored here include MemoryTechniques, MentalMath, CriticalThinking, BrainStorming, ShorthandSystems, NotebookSystems, and SmartDrugs. Other relevant topics are also welcome.
Art of memory
The art of memory (Latin: ars memoriae) is any of a number of a loosely associated mnemonic principles and techniques used to organize memory impressions, improve recall, and assist in the combination and 'invention' of ideas. An alternative and frequently used term is "Ars Memorativa" which is also often translated as "art of memory" although its more literal meaning is "Memorative Art". It is sometimes referred to as mnemotechnics.[1] It is an 'art' in the Aristotelian sense, which is to say a method or set of prescriptions that adds order and discipline to the pragmatic, natural activities of human beings.[2] It has existed as a recognized group of principles and techniques since at least as early as the middle of the first millennium BCE,[3] and was usually associated with training in rhetoric or logic, but variants of the art were employed in other contexts, particularly the religious and the magical. Origins and history[edit]
Technologies of Qi – Energy Flows Where Attention Goes
Can we direct Qi (or Chi) into our bodies using the power of imagination? The ancient practitioners of Tai Chi and Qigong definitely thought so. They taught that the flow of Qi energy is directe d by the mind, and it is through our imagination, that Qi is first felt, then reinforced. In their understanding of Qi, the mind and body cannot be separated. Beginning students learn to imagine Qi as a tingling sensation in the limbs, torso and palms of the hand, and then direct this sensation through the bodies meridians or energy pathways.
